The Three Things All Adoptees Wonder About

The decision to look for my biological relatives was driven by suspicious mammograms and a biopsy at 48.  Besides the need for medical history, that frightening scenario became the impetus for acting on some latent desires: who am I, where did I come from, and why was I adopted.  As I assembled the tools to dig in to my personal story, I read voraciously about adoption and the adoption triad. It was in this research that I realized that those three questions—who, where, why— were common among adoptees, and that to ponder them was normal and essential in forming a sense of self.

I can’t remember a time when I hadn’t known I was adopted.  The oldest of six, I wasn’t the only child in my family that was adopted.  My twin sister and I were adopted first, then two years later my brother. After us, my parents were gifted with three biological children.  We were a hodge-podge of human beings: three brunettes, a redhead, and two blonds. Some of us were tall, skinny, and freckly, and others were average height and stocky. Solid parents and consistent parenting molded the six of us into a family. When I think about this now, the fact that I was one of the adopted kids, just hadn’t seemed like a big deal. Like grabbing a towel after a shower, it’s what you do.  It’s what you are. It’s the way of your life.

I was happy in the family that I was adopted into. I felt loved and wanted.  I was given many opportunities, took advantage of those, and relished in making my parents proud.  While I admit that I had always been curious about my birth circumstances, I did not possess the courage to voice those aloud. It was only at bedtime that my mind wandered to those uncertainties: who am I, where did I come from, and why was I adopted. I picked up those three thoughts as if they were stones on the beach.  I studied them, tossed them around, and then the sheep I counted chased them away.

You would have thought that my twin and I would’ve talked about “the big three”, the doubts that niggled our adopted id and ego.  If we did, I don’t recall the conversation. Perhaps we didn’t have to. As identical twins we intuit a lot through looks and glances. Our relationship has always been deep without the need for cumbersome conversation.  If we didn’t talk about these adoption questions, our brains were coping with them. I also don’t recall saying to my friends or parents: I want to know who I was, where I came from, and why I was adopted. If I had uttered those statements not only would it imply that I was going to get at those questions, it would also indicate that I was unhappy with who I was, or the life I was leading.  That was not the case with my adoption. I was content with my circumstances.

In my formative years, my adoptive parents would periodically bring up the subject of my adoption, asking if I wanted to seek out information.  It was like they took out an adoption thermometer to check to see where my temperature had risen on the subject. Those were uncomfortable moments. “No. I’m fine,” was my standard reply.  At that stage in my life, I was fine not knowing the details of my adoption, but those pesky bedtime thoughts persisted.

Then at 48, I wasn’t fine. My health was threatened.  One of the hardest calls I had to make was to my folks asking for my adoption papers. I needed not only their help but also their support. While my Mom and Dad supported an adoption probe in theory, when they handed over the files, I saw fear, sadness and disappointment in their eyes.   My health was threatened and their sense of family was in jeopardy. I assured them: there would be no one else I would ever call Mom and Dad.

So where do I come out on all of this? “Who I am” is the product of four people I consider my parents. They all made me who I am, and my heart is big enough to include each of them.  “Where I came from” incorporates not only where I grew up, but also the rich history of my biological ancestors. I am proud to know that I am French and German, Scotch-Irish and Chippewa descent.  These facts allow me to be what is truly in me rather than what adoption told me I was.

For me, the answer to “Why I was adopted” was the trickiest.  On one level I know that I am from a relationship that didn’t work, that I had educated parents, and that they were not teenagers.  Through counseling I’ve learned that the choices my birth parents made was not about rejecting me personally. Yet, I still have work to do in accepting some of the “why” of what was revealed during my searches and reunions.

Ten years has evaporated since the day my folks handed over the adoption paperwork.  I am eight years into a reunion with my birthmother and four years into knowing two siblings from my father’s first marriage.  My birth father died suddenly last month and I was not given the opportunity to meet him. I am inordinately grateful to have found so much family to love.  Every day is richer because they are in my life.

The decision to launch my adoption probe was not an easy one and neither was the battle for a full medical background and pedigree. Now healthy, the breast biopsy turned out to be the key in answering questions I had been avoiding for years.  It is a relief to have wrestled the questions and assimilated the answers. I sleep better now that the sheep have chased the questions away for good.